


well if our paths never cross (I'll never live to match the beauty again)

by starraya



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Serena's first trip to the isle of lesbos, Sexual Content, Well it's a one night stand . . .
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-12 02:05:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13537386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: The last thing a grieving Serena wants to do is go to Ric’s school reunion party. All the people, all the smiles. She escapes outside to smoke. A blonde-headed woman in a tux joins her."I think you're meant to light it.”-Written for the Valentine's Gift Exchange for @commanderliaras. I took the prompt hurt/ comfort. I hope you like it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Valentine's Gift Exchange for @commanderliaras. I took the prompt hurt/ comfort. I hope you like it.

Serena knows Ric brought her along as his plus-one out of pity. She agreed to attend his school reunion party because the prospect of an empty house, a ready meal for one – she doesn’t cook anymore – and too much shiraz seems especially pathetic tonight. So, she rummages for a black dress in the back of her wardrobe and warns him: “Don’t expect cartwheels.”

When they arrive, she happily lets Ric do the talking. He tells the attendant their names, so he can strike them from his guest list. The attendant, a young American, smiles at Serena when he hears her name. She doesn’t smile back.

When they enter the foyer, Ric spots a woman, an old flame. Serena follows him up the stairs. She knows he wants to dart over to the woman before she disappears, but he hesitates and turns back to Serena.

“I don’t need babysitting,” she says, and Ric goes.

She stays behind. She rests an elbow on the balcony. There is a woman on the other side. She’s a bit blurry – Serena keeps putting off an eye-test – but Serena makes out a black tuxedo and a bob of blonde hair. She can’t see her facial expression, however, the smile the woman gives her, so Serena sighs at the pair of them, alone amid all these people. She guesses that the woman is just as miserable as her.

Get a grip, Campbell. She chastises herself and turns to find Ric.

She meets Ric’s woman, Cathy. She’s pretty and intelligent and Serena likes her, but the other school chum, a snobbish man that doesn’t know when to shut up, is insufferable.

They head to the buffet and Serena’s stomach turns. Her appetite never quite returned, and her body bears the proof: she’s slimmer, some would say that makes her look better, but she just thinks it makes her look haggard. Thinks it just means she’s lost another part of the woman she recognised in the mirror. Most of the weight around her hips settled there after her pregnancy, but, over the years, she grew comfortable within her body, with the swell of her stomach and the caesarean scar and the stretchmarks. They stay, of course, but she’s lost weight, lost the whole of who she was once was.

Serena has no desire whatsoever to hear the snobbish man’s comment when she passes on the buffet. She excuses herself for air and steps outside. She stands on the steps, clutching her shawl, black embroidered with a gold pattern, tight around her shoulders when the woman from the balcony joins her. There’s quiet between them – two strangers taking in the night air – until:

“I think you’re meant to light it.”

Serena startles. “What?”

The woman gestures to the cigarette in Serena’s fingers.

“Oh,” Serena clears her throat. “I forgot my lighter.”

“Here.”

The woman holds out her lighter and flicks it aflame. Serena puts the cigarette to her lips and then over the flame.

“Thanks,” she says, after her first drag.

“No problem.”

“I gave up nigh on thirty years ago.”

The woman chuckles. She takes out a packet of cigarettes from her pocket.

“Same.” She lights up her own cigarette. “Or at least I keep trying. I always tell myself, last one, but it never is.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Sorry,” the woman shakes her head at her rudeness and holds out her hand. “Bernie Wolfe.”

Serena shakes her hand. “Serena Campbell.”

“You’re kidding? Your Harvard dissertation on remodelling the 80/20 health care model blew my mind. When I read it – ” Bernie stops, struck by embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“Are you in the profession too?”

Bernie nods. “But I bet you’re sick of all the work talk.”

“Oh, never,” Serena smiles. “I’ve got nothing else better to do if you want a good chat.”

“Don’t you want to go back inside?” Bernie strains an ear. “They’re playing Prince, pretty good.”

It’s David Bowie, but Serena can’t find it in her heart to correct the woman. 

“No,” Serena clears her throat. “I only came here because a friend needed a plus-one but now he’s off gallivanting with his teenage sweetheart.”

“Snap. My friend roped me into going, only for him to spot a handsome waiter – his words, I thought he was just a bit average – and then he left me to try his luck.”

“Pity.”

“For the waiter, definitely. No, no, he’s a good bloke, my friend. Brave.” Bernie shuffles on the spot, shoves her hands her pockets. “Can I get you a drink?”

Just as she’s going to respond, Serena spots someone in the distance.

“That would be lovely, thank you.” She flashes a smile.

Bernie heads back inside and Serena dashes away to drag her husband somewhere out of sight.

-

“You were the one having the affairs!”

“Because you were never there, Serena,” Edward slurs his words. “You were always working.”

“Oh, cut the crap. Just say what you came here to say.”

“You were never there for _her_.”

“There we go!” Serena’s voice is almost gleeful. “Straight to the jugular tonight. Normally you’re _ever_ so slow.”

“This isn’t a joke, Serena.”

“My ex drunkenly stalking me at a friend’s reunion party? I think to the contrary.”

“You were never there for her and so you never saw what was happening to her. It’s like you just let it happen.”

“And she confided in your child-bride instead of me. Yes, this isn’t new to me.”

Serena goes to push past him, but Edward grips her wrist.

“Every time I look at you,” Edward presses close against her so his mouth, reeking of whiskey, is next to her ear. “I see her. I see our daughter. And I . . .  I hate it.”

Serena tries to yank her wrist free.

“I hate you,” Edward sobs, tears coursing down his cheeks.

“You need someone to blame, I get that. But Elinor wasn’t the first addict in the family, darling. She was her father’s daughter. And you know what,” this time it is Serena’s turn to growl against Edward’s ear. “It killed her.”

Edward throws her against the wall and Serena laughs at the curled fist at his side.

“Go on, then . . . Hit me. Will it make you feel better? “ Serena shrugs. “It’s all _my_ fault, so why don’t you just hit me?”

Edward snaps. Serena hardly flinches.

Someone wrenches Edward away from her. Pins him up against the wall.

“What the fuck are you doing?" Serena hears Bernie yell.

Edward tries to wriggle out of Bernie’s grip, but Serena sees the woman’s arm muscles strain underneath her jacket.

Edward laughs. “Sorry love, but in this instance, she did actually ask for it.”

Serena hears Bernie’s fist crack against Edward’s face.

“Now fuck off and don’t come near her again.” She shoves him to the side.

“She’s bit of a frigid fuck nowadays, if that’s what you’re after,” Edward mutters, staggers away.

Serena feels bile rise in her throat at the memory of those nights with Edward after Elinor’s death. She’d thrown herself at him and he hadn’t protested. The sex was empty, meaningless and left her feeling grimy the next morning. He is the only one that knows how she feels, but they are like poison to one other. They rip off each other’s scabs and infect each other’s wounds.

Serena drops her eyes to the floor. She goes to find Ric and tell him she’s booking a taxi home.

“Wait,” Bernie chases her back to the steps of the building. “You’re bleeding.”

Serena brushes her fingertips across her cheek. Bernie’s right.

“His wedding ring,” she explains with a wry smile. “I gave it to him exactly 26 years ago today.”

“You’re married to him?”

“Was.” Serena sighs, sinks to sit on the steps.

“Messy divorce?” Bernie sits next to her.

Serena looks straight ahead into the night. “Dead daughter.”

“Oh, Serena, I’m so –”

Serena waves a hand, saves her the apology. “Not your fault.”

Bernie knows it’s a gesture of finality, of drawing up the curtain on the past, so she focuses on the present. Tentatively, she places a finger under Serena’s jaw. Tilts it up and surveys the cut.

“Luckily, it’s not that deep. You won’t need stitches, but – “

“What kind of doctor are you?”

“Trauma surgeon. RAMC. I’m on leave from Afghanistan.”

Serena makes a show of gasping. “Why, I bet you say to that all the women.”

“Only the ones I like.”

It’s little more than a whisper, but it makes them both realise how close their lips are.

Bernie drops her hand away from Serena, flushes spectacularly crimson.

“Sorry, I -" She runs a hand through her hair – ah, Serena thinks, that nervous habit must be why it’s so messy. 

Serena saves her apologies again, this time with a warm smile that melts Bernie inside. She takes Bernie’s hand within her lap and inspects it.

“You could probably use some ice on this. I’ll go and get some from the bar.”

“No,” Bernie reaches behind her for the drinks she brought out for them, the ones she set down before hearing Serena’s voice and searching for her. She picks up a whiskey glass and sets its chilled surface against her knuckles. “ _Improvisation_.” 

Serena chuckles which sparks Bernie’s laugh and what a laugh it is, more of a honk, Serena thinks – was her mother a goose? – and laughs some more.

“Although, we should clean up that cut,” Bernie rises to her feet. “There’ll be a first aid kit somewhere.”

“Oh, I see, we’ll still keeping up the whole knight in shining armour thing?”

“How else I am meant to woo a girl?”

 _Smooth_ , Serena thinks, _very smooth._  She smirks in response, chuckles when Bernie turns away, turns back – loses the effortless suaveness – and trips over her words before dashing away. “I do think you’re super hot.”

Serena reaches for her glass of wine. Red. A superb guess on Bernie’s part. She sips, smiles and waits for her knight in shining armour to return.

-

Bernie returns with a first aid kit and a glass of red – another very excellent move – and they talk and Serena’s mind races at a mile a minute. Bernie Wolfe is sweet and butch and hot. Serena’s attracted to her. Bernie Wolfe is sweet and butch and hot _and a woman_ and Serena’s attracted to her. Serena wants to kiss her.

_A woman._

She’ll question the implications of that fact another day, but for now – when Bernie laughs at her own joke, spills some wine on her fingers and licks it off – Serena can’t think beyond kissing her, tasting her and running her hands through her hair and peeling off her jacket and her shirt and tasting the skin underneath that.

“Serena. Are you okay?”

She must have zoned out, because Bernie’s brows are furrowed in concern.

“Yes, I just . . ." She sets her glass of wine on the step in front of her. She curses her trembling hands. She curses the way she sounds, breathless and terrified and turned-on. “I . . .” Her eyes flicker down to Bernie’s lips. “I think you’re super hot too.”

Bernie leans into her, Serena leans in too. Bernie’s fingers brush under her chin again.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes, but first –” Serena hears her heart pounding in her ears – she never was one to do things by halves – and takes a deep breath. “I didn’t think I was going to stay the night, so I didn’t book a room.”

“Room 143,” Bernie smiles, answers her unspoken question and kisses her, long and lingering.

She stands up and holds out her hand for Serena to take and leads the way.


	2. Chapter Two

It’s nothing like Serena expected. That is, she expects raw, sweaty, unadulterated, vigorous passion, kisses that scorch and hands that tear at clothes and there is that, but there’s also a tenderness within Bernie’s movements she hadn’t expected. Serena only manages to divest Bernie of her jacket, before she pins her to a wall and lavishes kisses on her neck. She asks if she can remove her dress and insists on taking the necessary care, whispering in Serena’s ear for her to turn around so she has her facing the wall. She slowly draws down the zip, pressing kisses against the newly exposed skin, at the top of Serena’s spine. It’s bloody maddening because she pauses after three kisses and slips a hand around Serena’s waist and cups her breast with one hand.

Serena gasps. “I’ve never . . . done this before.”

“You’ve never had a one-night stand?”

Serena shakes her head. “I’m 49. Of course, I’ve had a one-night stand.” Bernie’s hand has moved, her fingers skim the skin next to the V of her neckline. “Just . . . never with a woman.” Serena takes Bernie hand, stills it and turns around, her other hand holding up her dress. “I’ve never done _anything_ with a woman.”

“Oh.”

Bernie looks scared. _Oh shit,_ Serena thinks, _why did I blurt that out?_

“If you’re uncomfortable, we can stop. Get something to eat or go back to the party or I could just -”

“No, no. Don’t go.” Serena clings on to Bernie’s hand as she tries to withdraw it. She wraps her fingers tight around it. “I want this, and I haven’t wanted anything for a very long time.” She presses their joined hands to her chest, but Bernie doesn’t say anything, and her grip loosens. “That it’s, if you want it to?”

Bernie kisses her. “Your dress is very lovely, but I would like very much to get you out of it.”

Serena takes a deep breath, reaches behind her back to pull the zip down all the way and lets her dress fall to the floor. Her underwear is black, a little lacy and (she thanks her earlier self) matching but it is nothing like what she would have worn if she knew that this was going to happen. Bernie doesn’t seem to mind, looks at her wide-eyed like she’s the eighth wonder of the world and closes the distance between them, sliding her hands around Serena’s back to unhook her bra. Serena lets it fall to the floor, and, without warning, Bernie’s hands travel to her arse and lift her up. Serena clenches her legs around Bernie’s waist and kisses her. Bernie gently lays her back down on the bed.

“That – was –” Serena manages between breathes, between moans, because Bernie is sucking on her nipple and rolling the other between her thumb and forefinger, “quite – the – move.”

“Oh,” Bernie lets her nipple go. “I have many more.”

“You also have far, far too many clothes on.”

Bernie sits up, straddling Serena’s waist and unbuttons her shirt and throws it over her hand and unhooks her bra. Serena’s hand drifts to her stomach first, toned and flat but marked with a caesarean scar like her own and striped with stretchmarks and – Serena’s heart clenches – scars. There’s one above her hip and Serena traces it with her fingers, before her hand journeys up to Bernie’s breasts. _How did she never realise how glorious women’s breast are before?_ She brushes a thumb across her nipple, feels it harden beneath her touch.

“Trousers,” she says, drawing circles against her nipple.

Bernie complies and for a moment, Serena wishes she’d never asked, because suddenly Bernie’s weight disappears from on top of her so she take off her trousers, but then Bernie is back, lying on top of her, nearly naked, they’re both nearly naked and Serena cannot believe she has been wrongfully deprived of this experience her _entire_ life, of a woman’s soft curves pressed against her own, breasts against breasts, hips against hips, legs tangling together. Serena cannot believe she has been wrongfully deprived of the experience of Bernie Wolfe pressed against her.

Somehow Bernie knows she can’t take much more, and after a kiss to her lips, Bernie’s mouth trails down her sternum, trails down her stomach.

“Can I?”

Serena murmurs a yes and Bernie removes her underwear. Bernie’s hands skim her thighs, encouraging her them to part and for Serena to raise her knees – she doesn’t seem to care a jot that Serena doesn’t shave her legs, or anywhere for that matter – and settles between her thighs. Serena throws her head back at the sight of it because _oh god_.

“Serena.” Bernie’s tone is gentle, and Serena can feel her voice vibrating against her. _There._ “Look at me.”

Serena knows – even before the first flick of Bernie’s tongue – that she’ll come embarrassingly quick, but when she does – when she screams – Bernie doesn’t let her feel embarrassed and simply slips two fingers inside of her.

-

Later, much later, when Serena has lost count of her orgasms, its around the four or five mark, but she’s hazy about how fast the last two succeeded one another and whether it was one long moment of pure bliss where she was floating somewhere that was surely miles away from this universe. She is much surer of the two orgasms she coaxed from Bernie. Yes, she’s very proud of them and wishes she could make her and Bernie equals, but she’s not as young as she was, and her body decides for itself that death by Sapphic sex is not permissible just right now.

She’s collapsed on top of Bernie, panting. Bernie’s fingers draw patterns on her back.

“You okay?”

Serena manages a nod, then remembers they aren’t facing and lifts her head up. “More than okay.” They kiss, the first one not fuelled by passion but by the lazy, loose feeling in their bodies, the heady scent of sex lingering in the air.

Serena shifts off Bernie, but Bernie’s hand doesn’t let her go far and guides Serena’s head back on her chest.

“Is it always like this?” Serena murmurs, interlacing her fingers with Bernie’s.

“Like what?”

“Is it always like this, with women?”

Bernie doesn’t know what Serena means, longer, better, more satisfying? “I’ve always preferred it.”

Serena chuckles, low and throaty. “You can tell.”

“What’s that meant to mean?”

“You have the stamina of a twenty-something.”

“Perks of being in the army,” Bernie explains. “Regular exercise.”

Immediately after she says it, she wishes she hadn’t. Her gut twists. When she grew up, heard of her uncle cheating on her aunt, and their divorce, she thought she’d never be that woman. But she is. Her wedding ring to Marcus is discreetly secreted in an inner pocket of her jacket. Serena isn’t the first. But those handful of affairs, typically when she was on leave, over the past two decades of their marriage, never felt like this. They left her feeling guilt and ashamed, but she doesn’t now. This, Serena in her arms, feels right.

Suddenly, Bernie finds herself blinking back tears. She’s grateful Serena has settled on her chest and closed her eyes, so she can’t catch her. If only she’d been brave enough, if only she’d found it in her to tell the truth, all those lost opportunities when Marcus asked her if there was anything wrong, the question he was always asking her. Serena’s beautiful and intelligent and Bernie doesn’t want to leave her in the morning, flee from her like some sort of criminal. At least she told Serena her real name this time, unlike the others who got false ones and false numbers.

Bernie hears soft snores. Serena succumbing to sleep.

_Oh god, what has she done?_

Serena is beautiful and intelligent and fragile. All night, Bernie had caressed her with a delicate hand as if she was scared to break her. Not newly but break her more than Bernie guessed she already was. Serena’s ex-husband is a bastard. She’s grieving over a dead daughter. And still Bernie kissed her and took her back to her hotel room, and in the morning, Bernie will leave her as she sleeps. She has no choice.

“I’m sorry,” Bernie whispers against Serena’s hair, and knows she’d be a monster to untangle herself from Serena now and slip out into the night. She closes her eyes and falls into darkness.

The ring of a phone jolts her awake. It’s still dark, that’s the first thing she registers and the second is a grey smudge, Serena sitting on the edge of the bed, the throw wrapped around her and her phone to her ear.

“Oh god.”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She puts the phone down and rises.

“Serena?”

“Sorry, I have to go.”

“What’s happened?”

“My friend needs me. Something’s happened.”

Bernie’s brain is foggy with sleep, and slow at processing Serena’s words, but she recognises the distress in Serena’s voice and automatically responds with: “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, no, it’s alright. Go back to sleep.”

Serena disappears into the bathroom, and it’s only then that Bernie realises she had plucking her clothes off the floor. A few moments lately, Bernie hears the bathroom door open. “Wait. Take my jacket.”

Serena retrieves the item from where it is crumpled at the foot of the bed and through the dim light, smiles fleetingly at Bernie – it’s forced, Bernie knows Serena’s too worried about her friend to smile – and, without a word, Serena disappears.  


	3. Chapter 3

Ostensibly, she returns to room 143 to return Bernie’s jacket to her, but, aside from that, Serena doesn’t really know why. Bernie opens the door on the third knock and blinks in surprise. “Serena?”

She steps back to let her into the room.

“I – err – you jacket,” Serena says, but doesn’t remove the garment, her throat suddenly tight and her eyes stinging as they well with tears.

“What happened?”

“Ric’s friend, she died.”

“Oh, god.”

“She was sick, but no one knew until it was too late. She was only our age.”

Serena is crying. Later, she will feel embarrassed at collapsing into sobs at Bernie’s door, but for now tremors overtake her body and she couldn’t stop them if she wanted. Bernie doesn’t know what to say – and even though she’d never been much of a tactile person, never on to instinctively express affection with touch – she doesn’t question it when Serena ends up gathered up in her arms, and they stay like that until her shirt is wet with Serena’s tears and Serena’s head hurts from crying.

“Sorry,” Serena mumbles into her neck.

“It’s okay.”

Serena draws backs. “If I got his maudlin over every patient I lost . . .”

“She wasn’t a patient.”

“I know,” Serena lets out a watery laugh, “I hardly knew the woman.”

“Still, it’s a shock. Losing someone . . . when it’s unexpected.”

Another tear slips down Serena’s cheek, but Serena wipes it away quickly as if she can’t afford to shed anymore and her eyes flit away from Bernie.

“Have you had anything to eat?” Bernie asks. “Want me to get you something?”

“You really are a soldier.”

“Sorry?”

“Chivalrous.”

 “I can even throw a coffee in if you want?”

“Coffee sounds good.”

“How do you take it?”

“Strong and hot.”

Bernie laughs. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” Serena smiles, before kissing Bernie. It starts as a quick press of lips, an act of gratitude, but it melts into something slow and soft. For a long moment, their lips remain the only point of contact, as if it’s their first kiss, and they daren’t try for anything more just yet, no matter how much they desire it, because this is so new and unfamiliar, but slowly their arms slide around each other, and they press closer together, and . . .

She can’t do this, Serena decides. Last night, it had felt different, but, again, today? She feels as if she’s using Bernie, or leading her on somehow, or . . . she doesn’t know, only that she is too much, this is all too much for Bernie who probably only wanted a night of escapism, who thinks Serena only wanted the same, but instead Serena reappeared at her door, the death of a stranger unexpectedly ripping whatever bandages Serena had tied over the memory of the sudden death of her daughter, and rending her a mess.

Serena breaks off the kiss, stumbles back. The door to the en-suite bathroom is open, and Serena catches a glimpse of her washed-out reflection in the mirror over the sink. Its blurriness reminds her of her short-sightedness, of her age. All last night’s make-up must be gone, or the vestiges caked into the creases of her face. Her eyes must be red, her face puffy. Her grey hair must be sticking up at odds and ends.

Serena’s looks down at her creased dress. It chafes at her skin and when she dresses later she will find pink marks on her skin, but no mark of Bernie, no crescent shapes of fingernails on her back or any colour on her neck from Bernie’s lips. Bernie was too gentle last night, enveloping her like the sea, washing anywhere stains rather than leaving them, but the sea always draws back come morning, and exposes the shore, the cracked, crumbling rocks.

Serena must leave, but she doesn’t know how. “I . . .” Bernie looks at her worriedly. “I haven’t showered.”

“You can use the one here . . . if you like.”

“I don’t have any other clothes to change into.”

Bernie knows what Serena is doing, but she tries to halt the inevitable. “At least let me get you that coffee.”

“I start work again tomorrow. I've been off four months. I have to get things ready.”

Bernie doesn’t answer immediately, absorbing Serena’s excuses words and settling simply on a softly spoken: “Okay.”

Serena turns away slowly – if only, she thinks, things were different, if she wasn’t so bruised and misshapen from Elinor’s death.

“Wait,” Serena turns back to Bernie. “Your jacket.”

“Keep it.”

“Don’t be daft.”

“Okay, keep this instead.” Bernie places a delicate kiss on Serena’s cheek, and neither of them know who moves their faces first, but their lips join once again, anything to preserve their time together a moment more. It’s running out, and so they clutch at it hard, arms quickly tightening around each other. Serena threads her fingers into Bernie’s hair and moans as Bernie’s tongue slips into her mouth, moans at the memory of last night, her fingers in Bernie’s hair, Bernie’s head between her thighs and her tongue sliding against her. Serena wonders what it feels like. What it tastes like. What Bernie tastes like. Serena starts fumbling for the buttons on Bernie’s shirt, but before she can give up and pull it over Bernie’s head, Bernie pushes at the jacket on Serena’s shoulders, throws it somewhere.

There’s a clang against the radiator. Their heads snap around at the noise.

There, glistening against the red carpet, lies Bernie’s wedding ring.

Silence.

Then Serena’s look of betrayal.

“Serena, I can . . .”

“Don’t tell me, you’re a pickpocket and swindled it from some old lady at the bar.”

Bernie presses a hand to her forehead. “I wish I had.”

“Why, Serena, ‘You’ve never had a one-stand?’”, Serena repeats Bernie’s words to her last night. “Oh god, this must be routine to you. Picking up girls at parties, whilst your wife sits at home, wandering if you’re dying in some desert in the middle-east.”

All those years of suffering Edward’s infidelity and she’d never thought she’d become the other woman, or, at least, one of them.

“It isn’t like that.”

“What? You never meant for tonight to happen, you were playing good for once, but pity simply got the better of you?”

“Serena? Serena, wait,” Bernie calls as Serena makes for the door. “Pity?”

“Goodbye, Bernie. If that’s even your real name.”

“Serena, please . . .”

But Serena leaves without looking back.

-

Serena steps outside the hospital after a gruelling surgery. She craves a cigarette, but she gave up – for what she hopes is for good – two years ago after Ric’s party. She shuffles on the spot, wishes she’d brought a cup of coffee out with her. She turns back inside for Pulses and collides with another woman in a long pink coat. The woman jumps back – her blonde curls jumping about with her.

“Sorry, I –”

Serena’s mouth drops open, but Bernie has also lost the ability to speak. Serena’s flit across her body in disbelief – as if she’s some apparition – and settle on the unlit cigarette in Bernie’s hand. She says the first thing that pops into her head.

“I think you’re meant to light it.”

Bernie’s face breaks into a wide smile. “Serena.”

“I – I er – why are you here?”

“First day as a locum on Keller.”

“You left the army?”

“More or less.” A gust of wind blows Bernie’s fringe in front of her eyes and she shakes her head back, so she can see again. Serena catches sight of an impressive scar running down Bernie’s neck. It can’t be more than a couple of months old.

“What happened?”

“Long story.” Bernie shoves her hands in her pockets, eyes flickering to the ground. “Look, Serena . . .”

“Forget about it.”

Bernie senses Serena is about to flee again. “Please, let me tell you what I didn’t have a chance to that night. I never thought I’d see you again, but life seems to be giving me a lot of second chances lately. Don’t know why. Don’t deserve them, but . . .”

Serena hears Bernie’s voice crack with unmistakable pain.

“I was just going to the café . . . if you fancy a caffeine shot?”

“Love one,” Bernie smiles.

-

They sit opposite each other at Pulses, Bernie tracing the rim of her coffee cup with her finger, Serena toying with the pendant of her necklace.

“You look well,” Bernie begins, shyly, because Serena does. She can’t pretend she hasn’t worried about her over the years, how Serena coped after going back to work. She can’t pretend she hasn’t tortured herself with self-recrimination after sleeping with a woman so recently bereaved, vulnerable even, and surely not in a good headspace, and then upsetting her so terribly.  

“You look . . .” Serena replies. “Different.”

“It’s okay. I look terrible.”

“No, I didn’t mean . . .”

“Don’t worry. Divorce and spinal surgery will do that to you.”

“You got hurt? In Afghanistan?”

Serena’s voice is full of concern, but Bernie skips back to the other topic.

“I never had a wife, Serena. I mean I don’t think it makes what I did less worse than it was, but I was married to a man. He didn’t know . . . that I was, well . . . and it’s no excuse, I know. I broke our wedding vows. I broke up our marriage.”

Serena reaches for Bernie’s hand, wraps her fingers around it.

“I just couldn’t do it anymore, so I told him. Gave him back his ring. Signed the papers. But I was a coward, still. I couldn’t face my children and I went back on tour. The next week I got hit by a IED.”

“And ended up in this place? Troubles do come in threes.”

Bernie laughs at that, laughs her goose laugh, and Serena can’t help laughing at it and without thinking tells Bernie: “I missed your laugh.”

Bernie squeezes Serena’s hand. “I missed you.”

Before Serena respond, there’s a crash behind them, and they turn to see a woman collapsed on the floor. They jump, simultaneously, out of their seats and to her aid.

She will be the first patient they treat together, _their_ first patient, but not their last.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I think the limit for fanfiction was 2000 words for the gift exchange, so I sort of cheated. This is chapter one and officially the gift, but there is more drafted that I won't be able to finish in time.
> 
> Title from Fleetwood Mac's Seven Wonders bc it is a jam.


End file.
